A Hand To Hold
by Princess Kitty1
Summary: -AU- Upon delivering origami cranes to a terminally ill schoolmate, student council vice president Ulquiorra Cifer finds himself coming back to visit her every day... and with a possible treatment just out of her reach, she's going to need the company.


**A/N: **Hello all, my name is Princess Kitty1! I wanted to write a canon fic, but realized it would be spoilers for my one-shot series, _Tell Yourself _and had to start over in alternate universe. However, I've been sick and quarantined recently and decided to draw inspiration from that, so here is my entry for the UlquiHime Valentine's Day contest. It's lengthy, but I hope you all enjoy it.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Bleach, "Move Along" by The All American Rejects, or any other copyrighted material.

**A Hand to Hold**

**By: Princess Kitty1**

"_Hands are shaking cold,_

_Your hands are mine to hold."_

It had started with one thousand paper cranes. Each one a different color, carefully creased, jagged wings and pointy beaks, all tied together by strings. They sat in a box atop a desk in the student council room one afternoon in spring, at the beginning of the school year, catching the sunlight coming in from the open windows when vice president Ulquiorra Cifer arrived, blinking behind the lenses of his glasses.

Being that he had only recently gotten them – his inability to throw a ball straight in his PE class had given his nearsightedness away – he thought that the glasses might have been playing tricks on him. However, Momo Hinamori, the treasurer, was in the room as well, and her twenty-twenty vision saw the cranes just fine. "These? They're from class 2C. Ishida-san was supposed to deliver them to the hospital today, but he's out of town with his father."

Ulquiorra walked over to the desk upon which the box rested. There was a card attached to the end of one string of cranes, which he lifted up for examination. _Get well soon, Inoue-san_. He laid it back down. "And I suppose," he murmured, "that as the vice president, they want me to take them in his stead?" Momo blushed and lowered her gaze to her shoes. Cifer-san had never been very approachable, and being alone in the room with him made her nervous. "Would this task not be better suited for a female?"

"I-I guess, but you know how Principal Yamamoto is. He likes things done by the book."

Ulquiorra let out a barely audible sigh. In that case, he supposed that it would just have to be done. He wasn't a fan of hospitals, though he couldn't imagine that anybody was, and therefore felt apprehensive about the task in general. But he was one of the chosen representatives of his grade, of his high school, and thus it was his duty to uphold its spotless reputation. Bringing paper cranes to a sick girl was all part of the job.

And so he lifted the box from the desk and carried it out of the room, down the hall, passing a trio of girls from the sewing club who greeted him with a nod and a "Good afternoon, Cifer-sempai." He nodded in kind. The school was almost empty, save for a few stragglers and a handful of clubs winding down for the day. Ulquiorra stopped by the teacher's lounge to find out which hospital he was going to. Alongside directions, he received praise for his good deeds, comments on how dependable he and President Uryuu Ishida were. He replied that it was no problem and went on his way.

It had been a cool spring afternoon, the blooming cherry blossoms sending petals scattering along the sidewalks. With the setting sun casting long shadows on his path, Ulquiorra carried the heavy box of cranes, stopping occasionally to rest his arms. From the high school's front gate, he walked down a busy street to the station, wedged himself onto a crowded train, got off two stops later, and navigated his way through a bustling shopping district before finally reaching the hospital. He found a directory and got his bearings, then made his way to the long-term patient ward, annoyed by the sterile smell of the building. It was making the bridge of his nose throb.

One elevator ride and several twists and turns later, he arrived at a long hallway lined with rooms in varying states of occupancy. From elderly patients shuffling along in their robes and slippers, to young adults enduring painful physical therapy sessions, the place was filled to the brim with the sick and injured. A nurse at the reception desk kindly directed and accompanied Ulquiorra to the room of Orihime Inoue, but before allowing him inside, gave him a protective surgical mask to wear. He looked at the woman questioningly. "Oh, don't worry. This is more for her sake than yours," she told him serenely.

The door to Room 403 was cracked open, and a handwritten sign torn from a notebook welcomed guests with a crudely drawn smiling rabbit, but the nurse knocked before entering anyway. "Inoue-san, you have a visitor from school."

Ulquiorra was starting to have second thoughts about entering. He didn't know this girl, after all, and as such she had no idea who _he _was. Unsure of the circumstances of her hospitalization, he was far from the right candidate to have sent on this mission, his duty aside, but it was too late to turn around. He had lugged the box of cranes all the way there, and he wasn't carrying them back with him. So he followed the nurse into the darkening room, his glasses framing the sight before him.

The first thing that he had noticed was the girl's hair. Long, straight, and a soft auburn color that reminded him of leaves in the fall, it went about midway down her back in soft waves. She sat on her knees, her body turned to face the window through which the shopping district must have been visible, hands in her lap. The blinds were wide open, the curtains pulled back as far as they could go to let in as much light as possible. But because the sun was setting, the room was mostly cast in red and orange hues that caused her silhouette to be eerily dark. Without warning or acknowledgement that she'd heard the nurse, the girl glanced over her shoulder to see who had come.

The nurse put a hand on Ulquiorra's shoulder and gently nudged him further into the room, giving him an encouraging smile before returning to her station. He stood staring at the silver-eyed girl, and she stared back. The box began to grow heavy again. "Inoue Orihime-san, my name is Ulquiorra Cifer. I'm the student council vice president." He walked forward, determined to make this as quick as possible. "These are for you, from your homeroom class." He made a face behind the surgical mask, which was stifling and uncomfortable, but it went unnoticed by the girl, who repositioned herself so that she was facing him.

"What are they?" she asked, leaning forward a bit to peer inside the box in his arms. "Oh, cranes! They're lovely!" Her hands – one of which had an IV attached – came out to gingerly touch the colorful origami birds, her thin fingers caressing one blue wing, then a green neck. "This must have taken everyone such a long time."

Ulquiorra cast a look at the wall. "They are wishing for your rapid recovery," he said awkwardly, not knowing whether it was true or not and feeling a little strange for the addition. To think that there was someone in his school that was in the hospital, and he hadn't even known. He couldn't imagine being cooped up in this place for more than a few hours, and even then, that was stretching it. The fifteen minutes he'd been here were already gnawing on the edges of his nerves.

Orihime lifted a string of cranes out of the box, searching the room for a place to put them. "It would be a shame, leaving them in here," she muttered, her brow creasing in thought.

Ulquiorra's eyes landed on a hook in the corner. "You could hang them over there," he suggested, his voice tight with irritation. He wanted to leave. People died in hospitals. Why couldn't Momo have just volunteered to take the cranes? She was better at these sorts of things, being a girl and having that natural mothering instinct that made unruly children stop crying.

"Oh, you're right!" Orihime slid off of the bed, careful not to upset the IV in her arm. She took the string of cranes and walked over to the corner on socked feet, her gown swishing about her knees and lifting slightly when she attempted to raise the paper birds to the hook. The IV snagged, causing her to wince. She frowned down at it for a second before turning to face Ulquiorra. "I hate to be a bother, but would you help me, Cifer-san? You're a little taller than I am. It'd make the work go by faster." And she smiled with the ease of someone who _wasn't_ sick in some way, shape or form. "I'd be incredibly grateful."

Ulquiorra stared at her. That smile… how in the world could she smile like that? Was she not aware of where she was? Did she not feel the urge to throw herself out of the window and run as far away from this sprawling, sterile environment with its still life paintings and lavender colored waiting room chairs? He didn't understand that smile. It was as otherworldly and out of place as he currently felt, and it worked a fierce sort of magic upon him that had him opening his mouth in reply. "Yes," he tried the word as if he'd never spoken it before, and set the box down on the hospital bed, joining her at the corner of the room.

It had started with one thousand paper cranes, and an hour or two spent hanging them from a plastic hook embedded in the ceiling. Not a day had passed in the year since, without student council vice president Ulquiorra Cifer walking to the station, taking a crowded train, getting off two stops later and fighting his way through a busy shopping district, to visit Orihime Inoue in a hospital that he couldn't stand.

…

Perhaps it was Orihime's easygoing manner that kept him coming back. No, he was sure of it. She treated the hospital like nothing but one inconvenient stop on the roadmap of her life, not the possible final destination. There were several things wrong with her, one being a failing immune system, which led to the face mask being a daily occurrence. If she were to catch a cold, there was a good chance that she would die within days, maybe even hours. Apparently she hadn't always been sick; a few months prior to his first visit she had contracted an illness that had decimated her health, leaving her in her current condition. But Orihime didn't let that get her down. She was on the list for an experimental treatment coming in sometime around Valentine's Day, one that was supposed to restore her immune system to working capacity. The test results had been good, but since she was a low priority patient, she'd been waiting for a while.

In the mean time, she liked to tease him about his nervous hospital habits; mainly, the fact that he would confine himself to the chair by her bedside and touch absolutely nothing during his visits, his green eyes narrowing over the mask at the foreign instruments surrounding her. "You get used to it," she told him when he asked how she could stand it. He didn't believe her.

The window blinds were always open, except at night before Orihime went to sleep. How she would feel in the morning was about as random as plucking a name out of a hat. Sometimes she was as spirited and energetic as the day he had met her. Other times she would wake up enough to thank him for stopping by, then she would sleep the daylight away, reporting to him her strange dreams when she became lucid again. Apparently becoming Queen of the Toaster Strudels was very important to her, as she had these warlike dreams often and in sequences.

Ulquiorra saw the seasons change from that hospital room window, and he still didn't quite understand why he was there. But he was, and Orihime told him that it mattered, so he returned the next day, and the day after that. Eventually he decided that he was waiting with her. Every time he went to write in his planner, he would unconsciously check how many days were left until she received her treatment. He still wasn't sure of the exact date, despite the fact that she had it circled on her calendar.

"You never wear your glasses more than you have to," Orihime observed one day in the middle of January, watching him do a homework assignment. He looked up to say something, only to catch an eyeful of cleavage from the open neck of her hospital gown. His gaze diverted back to the paper.

"I don't like them," he stated flatly.

Orihime reached over the side of the bed and helped herself to the glasses case sitting in his open school bag. "Some people have all the luck," she said with a pout, lifting the lid and extracting the frames within. "I'd always wanted glasses, just because they make some people look really sharp." Putting his on, she turned and smiled at him. "How do I look?"

Ulquiorra's eyebrow arched. "Like a nerd."

"Pfft! You're one to talk!" Orihime exclaimed, and laughed when he put his pencil down to glare at her. She'd made him mad. Amazing how there was a temper simmering beneath that cool exterior. "Just kidding. You can wear these better than I can." She flopped over onto her back, staring at the television above the bed. "Whoa! I'm totally going to get a headache!"

"Then take them off," Ulquiorra picked up his pencil again, unable to concentrate on the English paragraph on the page. He might as well have been trying to read Russian.

Orihime raised her arms and began making weird waving gestures with her hands. "You know," she said suddenly, wiggling her fingers, "it's been three hundred and six days since you brought those cranes to me last year."

"Has it really?" Ulquiorra tapped pencil against paper.

"Yup. Don't ask me how I remember; I just _do_."

"You remember all sorts of weird things."

"I do not."

"What was I wearing last Sunday?"

"Black pants, studded belt, these totally awesome kicks, and a white shirt that had _The Pride _written across the front." He looked at her pointedly. She blew out her bangs. "I only remember that, though, because I told you that I'd had no idea you were so fashion forward, and you decided to ignore me by going downstairs and getting a candy bar. You even took the time to _eat _it since you have to keep the surgical mask on around me at all times." Orihime sat up suddenly. "You know, come to think of it, I've never even seen the other half of your face."

Ulquiorra closed his English book and slipped it into his backpack. "It's nothing special."

Orihime tilted her head to the side, his glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. "It is to me."

In those past three hundred and six days, Ulquiorra had begun to develop stomachaches whenever she looked at him like that. He'd thought about getting it checked, but he was afraid that the nurses would simply laugh it off and tell him that he had a crush on the girl. How rude. He would hold them fully responsible when his spleen decided to explode.

Figuring he would indulge Orihime before she began to pout, he fished his cell phone out of his back pocket and began going through his pictures until he came to one taken with his sometimes-best friend Grimmjow Jaegerjaques.

Orihime received the phone and squealed with delight. "Ulquiorra-san is so cute!" she declared, holding it away from him when he scowled and tried to take it back. "Let me guess; from what you've told me about your other friends, this is… Grimmjow-san?"

"Yes. Please give me my phone."

"You've got a nice jaw," she went on, rolling across the bed to avoid his grabbing hands. "Though I cannot fathom why you wouldn't smile for such a picture. Do you ever smile beneath that mask?"

"No. Return the device to me at once, woman."

Orihime glared at him over her shoulder. "Make me."

Ulquiorra rose from his chair, glowering at her. Challenge accepted. He leaned over the hospital bed, and she grabbed the collar of her gown, pulling it away from her chest and holding his phone over the hole, letting it hang precariously between two fingers. "You wouldn't," he growled, but Orihime gave him a look that clearly suggested that she would. Sighing, he threw himself back into his chair while the girl smiled triumphantly and went back to admiring the picture. But once her guard was down, Ulquiorra shot forward and took hold of her wrist.

"Hey!" she cried as he attempted to wrestle the phone from her. She was surprisingly strong for someone who had been in the hospital for so long, and the ensuing tug of war ended with his chest pressed into her back and his arm stretched over her shoulder. His fingers could barely brush the back of her hand.

Orihime looked up at him again. They were close, the contact enough for Ulquiorra to feel her heart beating through her skin. For a moment, they both seemed to forget the phone, staring at each other as if they were seeing one another for the first time. Then he moved away from her, remembering that their current position wasn't exactly proper in the eyes of society, but stayed seated on the hospital bed. Orihime focused her attention on the window, clutching his phone tightly. "You know what I want to do?" she said suddenly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Hmm,"

"I want to go down into that shopping district, after I get my treatment and I'm well enough to leave." Her silver eyes reflected the sunlight, though it was eclipsed to a degree by her half-closed lids. "I don't have much money, but maybe I'll buy myself a new dress. Something cheerful and spring themed." She leaned back against Ulquiorra's chest, but he couldn't see her expression past her hair. "What do you think?"

He eyed the calendar on her wall, a date in February circled multiple times. "Sounds like a plan." She wouldn't be in there forever. This hospital thing was just temporary, and then she'd be back at school. He'd see her walking down the halls with her classmates, this existence behind her forever. That'd be nice, he thought as she flipped through the pictures on his phone, giggling at his friends' antics.

Sometimes – but he wasn't sure, because she was always so happy – he got the feeling that she hated this hospital more than he did.

…

"Cifer-san," said Uryuu Ishida one afternoon when they were alone in the student council room. He met the taller boy's concerned gaze. "You've been visiting Inoue-san every day, right?" Nod. There was no reason to deny it. This wasn't grade school, where people would point at him and snicker for 'having a crush'. "Ah, well… it's just… Inoue-san is kind of naïve, you know." Ishida went on, and Ulquiorra suddenly remembered that his only superior was an old friend of the girl's. "She might, uh…"

Ulquiorra held his gaze with an even one. "She might what?" he asked patiently. A cloud passed over the sun, casting the room in shadow.

"She might get the wrong idea," Ishida cringed as the words left his mouth, clearly worried that he would offend the other boy.

Silence endured in the room. They stood three desks away from each other, their backs turned towards the window. Then the cloud moved, and the sunlight returned, warming Ulquiorra's hand. "The wrong idea?" he repeated, though he didn't sound angry. "And what might that be?"

Ishida blinked in surprise. Was he pulling his leg? "Uh…"

"I don't pity her, if that's what you're saying," Ulquiorra interrupted him, picking up his school bag and heading for the door. "Though if you're as concerned as you're making yourself out to be, you should show your face at the hospital more often. I would expect the son of a doctor to be more at ease in such places, as opposed to an ordinary person like me." He stopped at the door and nodded at Ishida politely, saying nothing else as he departed.

The wrong idea, huh? Truly it would have been a more fitting thing to say, had the idea been wrong to begin with.

…

At the beginning of February, Orihime was energetic enough to leave her room, and so she begged Ulquiorra to take her on a walk around the floor until he relented. With her left arm through his right, and dragging the IV pole along beside her, the two set out on the most basic adventure they could manage. It was her turn to wear a surgical mask now, though she didn't complain about it. "My tutor says that I'm doing well," she was chattering excitedly as they strolled past the reception desk, earning smiles from the nurses there. "If I can pass my exams, I'll be a senior next year with the rest of the class."

Ulquiorra ignored the smiling women in scrubs. "It isn't difficult for you?"

"Nah. I've always been studious, even before I had nothing better to do." Orihime leaned on him for support.

"Tired?"

"A little bit, but I'll manage." She seemed to know who everybody on the floor was, despite her usual confinement, and listed the names of the patients in each passing room flawlessly. Then she was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "Ishida-san, Kurosaki-kun and Tatsuki-chan came to visit me yesterday, after you left." A big smile lit up her face. "I hadn't seen them in a long time. It was a pleasant surprise."

Ulquiorra snorted, but let his curiosity get the best of him. "Why haven't they visited in the past?"

"Oh, you know, hospitals make people uncomfortable." Orihime looked down at the floor. "I don't really blame them. I wouldn't want to see myself in this state, either. Like Tatsuki-chan; she tried to be strong, but she ended up getting mad about the fact that I haven't been treated yet."

"It doesn't make you angry?"

"I'm used to being a low priority."

He didn't like that at all.

They walked on in companionable silence, passing a room where a father and his two children were at the bedside of a young woman, presumably the mother in the equation. Orihime's gaze lingered on them for a while, a wistful sort of expression causing her eyes to glaze over. Ulquiorra noticed her distraction and changed the subject. "I won't be able to visit this week."

"Eh?" Orihime blinked. "Why not?"

"The cultural festival is going underway. I have to be around to help with the administrative things. It takes a while." He tried not to look at her. "I don't expect to be out of school until your visiting hours are over."

The girl frowned, blowing her bangs out in a huff. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

Ulquiorra took it as a rhetorical question and didn't respond. They turned around and went back the way they had come, passing the reception area and getting smiled at again. He would have sent the women a sour look, but his own mask rendered his expressions pretty nonthreatening. Orihime began to hum a Miku Hatsune song, then abruptly stopped, pointing ahead. Ulquiorra followed her gesture. "It's your physician," he informed her.

"Yeah… wonder what's up." She removed her arm from his and tottered back towards the hospital room. Ulquiorra stayed behind, figuring that whatever was going on was private. He'd give her a few minutes. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he wandered downstairs, thinking about the week ahead. He wasn't looking forward to all the work that would have to be done to prepare for the cultural festival, especially since he had to help his homeroom on top of everyone else, and the rivalry between Aizen-sensei and Urahara-sensei was going to be particularly heated this year. The two instructors were constantly at odds; something about an incident in college that remained unspoken. The fact that they ended up working in the same school was just plain bad luck for their future students.

Ulquiorra checked the time on his cell phone. Visiting hours were almost over, and he'd promised Grimmjow, Nnoitra and Yammy that he would go see the new American action film with them that night. He headed back upstairs in time to see the doctor bow his head to Orihime before leaving the room.

Inside, the girl sat on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest, looking like she was contemplating something. She turned her head in his direction. Her facial mask lay discarded on top of the blankets next to her. "Can you close the door, Ulquiorra-san?"

An odd request. She'd never said that before. He let the heavy door swing shut behind him, and she smiled, but there was something strange and different about it, something that made his stomach hollow out with dread. "What did the doctor say?"

Inhale, sigh. Orihime slid her legs away from her, sitting back on her palms. "Oh, nothing. The treatment got delayed again. Something about my insurance being its usual stupid self," she muttered, the fading light from the open blinds casting slivers of shadow across her body. The lines they added to her hospital gown reminded Ulquiorra of prison clothes. It suited her, in a way; how long had she been stuck in that room for, anyway? How much longer would she have to wait?

She seemed to be thinking the same thing, because one large tear slid lethargically down her cheek, and when she blinked, even more came, splattering onto her hands as they flew up to wipe them. "I just… I don't understand." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I don't get it. Why does money, of all things, have to be an issue?"

Ulquiorra sat on the edge of the hospital bed. "Because the medical industry is a business, just like everything else."

Orihime shook her head, her chin trembling as she leaned forward, curling in on herself. Alarmed, Ulquiorra remained perfectly still as she broke down into a series of loud sobs and shuddering breaths, her long hair falling limply over her shoulder. He didn't know what to do. Again, this comforting thing was better suited to women with their nurturing instincts. "Why?" Orihime lamented, lifting her face to the ceiling and weeping brokenly. "I'm just sitting here, wasting away. I'm _dying_, Ulquiorra-san! Doesn't my life matter to _anyone_?" she cried. "Am I not important enough to save?"

He understood her frustration, though he could never hope to understand her fear, her uncertainty. To have lasted this long without breaking down over her circumstances… Her heart was strong, even though her body wasn't. And it wasn't fair, he thought, that she was in such a predicament. He felt stupid for wishing he could do something more for her, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Reaching across the darkening room, past the bars that kept her jailed in that hospital, he placed his hand over hers. Yes, this was good. It wasn't much, but he took her laying her head on his shoulder as a sign of gratitude.

He decided that he would be late to the movie if it helped to put her at ease.

…

The cultural festival was plenty of people's favorite time of year, just not Ulquiorra's. He would rather be anywhere else than at school, putting forth more work than he wanted to, but his nerves had been bothering him since Sunday so he supposed that he should put his jittering energy to good use. The teachers were certainly glad for his help.

Ishida was in his element, handing out orders left and right, then disappearing for hours at a time, only to be found assisting his homeroom class with plans for their contribution. Urahara-sensei was running all of them into the ground, but Ulquiorra felt his pain; Aizen-sensei was no better. It was a maid café versus a haunted house, both of which would take a plethora of decorations and lots of time from the students. Urahara kept boasting that he had a secret weapon: Byakuya Kuchiki, an alumnus of the school and the older brother of one of his students, who would charm the females while the boys were entertained by the maids. The principal pretended not to be amused by the competition. At this rate, a war would break out: maids and butlers versus demons and ghouls.

Ulquiorra did not want to be there when the fighting happened, so he appointed himself as the freshmen helper and stayed downstairs. Meanwhile, the rest of the student council ran around as if the building was on fire, which it probably was, but there was too much confusion to evacuate properly.

Two days of preparations later, and he was fairly certain that he was ready to drop. His mind was across the city, in the hospital room where he had reluctantly left Orihime a tired, sniffling lump. She'd insisted that she was fine, and apologized to him for losing her composure: delayed or not, the treatment would get to her eventually. She said this, but there was no conviction behind her words.

Valentine's Day was the next day, Ulquiorra realized when he noticed how distracted all the female students were. He could hardly get them to work, as they seemed to prefer sitting around and talking about their crushes, or the chocolates they had bought at the stores. He felt that he should sneak away to the hospital for Orihime's sake. She was a girl, probably nuts about the holiday. Besides, the school wouldn't fall apart if he left for an hour or two. There were plenty of other workers around.

Close to the end of the morning, as he was helping two of his classmates, Loly and Menoly, decide on designs for everyone's costumes, his cell phone began to ring rather insistently. He lifted it from his pocket and checked the screen, frowning. No one usually called him during school hours. The number was unrecognizable. "Cifer-san!" He looked up and saw Momo standing in the doorway of the classroom. "Oh, err, sorry to interrupt… hello, Aizen-sensei," cue blush, "the freshmen were calling for Cifer-san."

Ulquiorra sighed and followed the girl outside, knowing that he would get a lecture later from Aizen-sensei about spies from the other classroom, though he hardly suspected Momo of having the capacity to carry out such a mission around the teacher she was sporting a crush on. His phone began to ring anew, the same unknown number flashing across the screen. He held a hand up for Momo to wait, then answered it. "Hello?"

A group of boys walked by, carrying a large Styrofoam beam, trying to get it into one of the classrooms without destroying anything. "Yes, this is…." Squeals of laughter came from inside the room as the others watched the spectacle. Momo glanced at them, then fiddled with the hem of her skirt. "She – no, I haven't seen her." Her head lifted in Ulquiorra's direction. He sounded oddly ill. "I'll keep an eye out… this number? Yes. Okay."

The call ended. "Is everything alright Cifer-san?"

Ulquiorra stared at the cell phone screen, knowing full well that he could lie and say that it was, but going for the honest option. "No." He pocketed the device and headed away from her, then stopped. "Hinamori-san, I have somewhere to be. If anyone asks for me, tell them to take their requests to Grimmjow in class 2E. He owes me a handful of favors."

"Oh! Umm… when can we expect you back?"

"Not today." He took off in the direction of the nearest exit.

Missing. The girl was missing. How the hell could she be missing? She couldn't have just gotten up and walked out of the hospital. Where in the world would she have gone? He pushed the doors open and froze. It was overcast outside, threatening rain. She was going to get herself sick. But why? She'd said that she was fine. His instinct had told him to worry, but he'd ignored it, and now…

Ulquiorra ran past a group of seniors bringing painted signs inside, calling out to each other about the weather. He was out of the school yard in seconds, taking his usual route. The bare branches of the cherry trees bent in the wind, groaning ominously. It was a miserable climate for being so close to Valentine's Day, and he'd left without his winter coat, or proper shoes, for that matter. At least the indoor slippers would allow him to move faster.

Where would she go? He closed his eyes, trying to remember, trying to picture the girl's smiling face and getting nothing but the miserable expression she'd worn as he'd walked away from her on Sunday night. _Focus_. He made a mental map of the hospital room and eventually settled on the window. What was out there?

The shopping district. She'd wanted to go there when she got better, so logically, that would be the best place to look.

He caught a train just as the heavens parted and the deluge began. So much for being a good representative of his high school. If the principal got word of this, he'd be muttering apologies for his entire senior year. But that wasn't important at the moment. He could worry about everything later. Right now, he needed to find Orihime. He had to get her back into the hospital where it was safe. Had she worn a face mask, at least? Or was she having a suicidal episode to get the insurance company's attention? Because if she thought that was going to work…

The train arrived at the shopping district, which was significantly less busy than usual. The bad weather was forcing people into stores, and the high school kids who frequented the area were still in class, so Ulquiorra's uniform was a practical beacon for anyone ready to catch him playing hooky. Still, he moved through the dwindling crowds, raindrops slamming full force into his glasses, making it harder for him to see. He stopped, looked around him and saw nothing. An older couple was staring at him. He stared back irritably and they averted their eyes.

With so many stores, Ulquiorra now had the added difficulty of trying to figure out which one he could find the girl in. But there was a good chance that she was nowhere near the shopping district, so he had to move quickly. How to narrow his search?

He could have smacked himself in the head. Right, _Valentine's Day_. Up ahead there was a brightly lit candy store, a nearby sign advertising a sale on chocolate making kits. Ulquiorra began walking towards it, hoping that his deductions were right.

The store's happy glow illuminated the sidewalk in front of it, catching the myriad of colors within and splaying them out on the ground. A girl in a hospital gown stood outside, looking in, her auburn hair damp and clinging to her skinny form. She seemed almost defiant as her silver eyes swept over the window display, fists clenched at her sides. She had no money to buy chocolate. She wasn't even wearing shoes. Her paleness seemed doubled in the contrast of the gray afternoon and the light from the store.

Truly, she was a pitiful sight, but Ulquiorra felt no pity for her whatsoever. He grabbed her wrist, giving her a shock that caused her to gasp loudly, and turned her to face him. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, holding onto her tightly.

Orihime tried to yank her arm away. "I couldn't stay there anymore!" she cried, glaring at him through her bangs. "They're just going to keep me cooped up in that room until I die! And if that's the case, then I'd much rather die out here with my freedom than spend another miserable day in that hospital!"

Ulquiorra made his voice as stern as possible. "Inoue-san, you have to go back."

"I won't! They're going to keep ignoring me and I'll just wither right under their noses and they won't care! They won't care at all!" She began to cry again, bringing up her free hand to hide her face. "I'm tired of waiting for a treatment that I'm never going to get, Ulquiorra-san! I'm just so tired…!"

"I know you're tired," he said over the rain, "but you have to go back. You're not healthy enough to be out here."

"I'm so sick of waiting…" she whispered through her tears.

"It's alright," Ulquiorra let go of her altogether. "I'll wait with you, Inoue-san. As long as it takes." She looked at him uncertainly. "I don't mind." He reached up and wiped the rain water off of his glasses. "I'll come back every day, and we'll wait together. If you get tired of waiting again, then I'll wait for you. Just," he sighed, "you need to go back. Please."

Orihime sniffled miserably. The hospital loomed in the distance behind them, the rain continuing to pour. Her gown was practically see-through, she realized, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She tried desperately to cover herself. Ulquiorra politely looked away, removed his school jacket and placed it over her shoulders. "You're wearing slippers," she noticed with a giggle, her tears mingling with the rain.

Ulquiorra nodded. "I guess I'm not as fashion forward as you thought."

"Oh, that's fine." Orihime smiled sadly. "I'd be a little concerned if you were."

Taking her peace as a sign that she would come quietly, Ulquiorra put a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards the hospital. She didn't complain, didn't strike up another rebellion. In fact, she was a lot quieter than normal; he'd been expecting her to launch into an account of how she had snuck out of the building. Glancing down at her, he saw the dazed look on her face and slowed. She didn't say anything when he stopped her, lifting his wrist to her forehead. She was burning up. "Hold on, Inoue-san. We're almost there." She made a distracted sort of sound in response. Ulquiorra frowned and hurried along with the sick girl in tow.

They barely made it into the hospital before she pitched forward, collapsing onto the floor in a wet heap.

…

On Valentine's Day, Ulquiorra found himself deviating from his usual route. He went through the station, and took the train like normally. He navigated the shopping district with ease. It wasn't until reaching the hospital that anything changed; rather than taking the elevator up to the long-term patient ward, he avoided it and took a few extra turns, coming into the intensive care unit instead.

Orihime lay in a room with the curtains drawn, hooked up to an IV, a heart monitor, and a good million other strange tubes that Ulquiorra looked upon with disdain. She'd caught a cold. Her immune system was doing everything it could to fight the infection. She was barely conscious when he was allowed to enter, donning the standard face mask.

Outside, the rain continued to fall. It was supposed to rain all week, thus flushing happy couples out of their dating plans. Ulquiorra stood at Orihime's bedside, saying nothing as she turned her head to look at him, her eyes bruised. She seemed to be having trouble breathing, her chest rising and falling at a slow and shallow pace. It took a few breaths for her to make a sentence. "You're wearing that silly mask," she observed quietly.

Ulquiorra shrugged. "It's so that I don't catch your cold," he replied, and she laughed as best as she could.

"Take it off," she grumbled, and he complied, tossing it onto the bed next to her. "Thank you." Her eyes fell shut.

She dozed for a while, and Ulquiorra waited.

She woke up again, and he waited.

She took his hand, and still he waited.

He leaned down, pressed a soft kiss to her lips, and together, they waited.

…

The sun came out on White Day a month later, which all the couples were thankful for. Orihime was well enough to leave the room that afternoon. She'd put on a little weight since starting her treatment, and the doctors swore that at the rate that her immune system was recuperating, she would finally be discharged within the next two months. Until then, she had to stay in the hospital to be monitored, but she wasn't nearly as confined as she used to be.

"Where were we going again?" Ulquiorra checked the screen of his phone for messages. One from his mother, urging him to mind Orihime's health; one from Grimmjow, reminding him to use protection. He replied to the latter, telling his best friend to go to hell.

"Shun Shun Rikka, the clothing boutique," Orihime said as she slipped her shoes on. "There was a dress in their catalogue that I wanted to buy."

"You bought a dress last week. Your brother's going to have a heart attack if you keep spending his money." Ulquiorra crossed his arms, waiting by the door. It was bright in the room, sunlight streaming in through the open window blinds.

"I know," Orihime walked up to him and clapped him on the shoulder companionably. "That's why _you're _buying it for me."

Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes. "Then you can't say that you're buying it, can you?"

"I can pretend."

He muttered something under his breath about girlfriends being expensive and held his arm out for her. "Let's go." She accepted it gladly, leaving the warm hospital room behind. As they passed the reception desk, the nurses grinned at them, and Ulquiorra continued to ignore their smiles. The elevator doors swung open with a pleasant ding.

"Hey, so, when we get back to school, do we have to pretend that we aren't dating?"

"Why would we do that?"

"You know, you're the vice president of the student council. Won't the teachers try to break us up or something?"

"Only if you aren't doing your homework. Don't think that you can get off easy just because you were sick for so long."

"Me?" Orihime sputtered indignantly as the elevator doors began to close. "What about _you_?"

"I had a cold," Ulquiorra reminded her, taking her hand firmly, "and I _always _do my homework."

**The End**

**A/N: **Somehow I managed to avoid turning this into a full novel. And I avoided character death as well! See, I like writing cute things every once in a while. They totally make my stomach hurt, though.

Hope you enjoyed the fic! Do let me know what you thought about it. Until next time!

**/Princess Kitty1/**


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